


Never Shut Out the Sky

by AppleSharon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 11:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13075722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleSharon/pseuds/AppleSharon
Summary: One, a pilot, doing what he was born to do. The other, a fighter, going against everything he was trained to do. Together, two of the brightest stars in the Resistance.The love story of Finn and Poe Dameron in a series of small stories.These will be canon-compliant and all will be centered around the relationship of Finn and Poe (friends-to-lovers and likely a rather slow burn as they figure things out together). Spoilers for both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.





	1. This is different

"I was taught all things that a lady should know."

"Does that include sewing?" Poe cocked his head to the side curiously. His arm was still stretched out towards her with the two-toned leather jacket in hand. The fabric was torn down the back. It was singed at the edges, but a clean cut.

Leia's laugh, her true laugh, was infectious. Poe basked in it. He hadn't heard it for some time — such a long time ago, nearly in his childhood — since the Resistance was formed, back when he was encouraged to call her Aunt Leia, despite having no familial ties.

Even as a child, he had taken her up on this offer rarely. She was too intimidating, even now.

"I'll take that as a yes," he grumbled without malice.

Later that night, they settled into a comfortable lull at Finn's bedside, slow beeps and small mechanical whirrs surrounded them, occasionally punctuated by a soft sigh from Leia as she poured over various datapads or a slight gasp from Poe when he accidentally stabbed himself with the sewing needle.

Another stitch, another calloused patch on his finger prodded and eventually skewered. A bead of blood rose to the surface and he quickly sucked on it so it didn't drip on the jacket. Beside him, Leia chuckled again, wistful and low. 

If he'd paused to think about it further, he would have realized that it hardly mattered. The leather was already a darker rust color from Finn's blood. 

He didn't think about it further. 

Poe's hands were clumsy and ill-suited for this task. They were rough and scarred from mechanical work — he preferred to do as many repairs as possible himself — but more precise repairs were swiftly passed along to BB-8 or a qualified mechanic. His fingers suddenly seemed too large as he awkwardly fumbled through each stitch. At the periphery of his vision, Poe saw Leia laughing. She made no effort to hide that she found his current predicament hilarious. 

He fought the urge to shove the entire thing into her hands and demand that she fix it but—

"Why don't you?"

Poe nearly fell off of his chair. 

"Did you just read my mind?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. 

She smiled sadly. It was an exhausted smile that crinkled the skin around her eyes and made the near-permanent dark circles that all Resistance officers shared more pronounced. 

Poe bowed his head in shame. 

"I'm sorry," he said. 

She waved his words off with a slight flick of her wrist.

"I didn't have to read your mind, Poe," she said, taking the rare opportunity to use his given name rather than his title.

"Yet, while we're on the subject, have you thought about what I told you previously?"

"I couldn't bother you with something like that—" he began.

Leia gestured at his hands resting on the jacket mid-stitch and held her stare.

"This is different."

With these words, Poe dropped his own gaze, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. 

_This is different_ , he repeated to himself.

One of the small perks afforded commanding officers was a personal room. In Poe's mind, taking full advantage of his own living space included the fact that no one, aside from an occasional one-night bed partner, had to deal with his sporadic nightmares. It was well documented that nearly all of the Resistance pilots struggled with varying degrees of insomnia and nightmares, but Poe's had only grown worse since the days he spent on the _Finalizer_. At times, he could still feel Kylo Ren probing gently and then thrusting his way inside without warning. None of the techniques that Poe had been taught to withstand interrogation had prepared him for that type of personal violation. Kylo Ren had seen everything, from his last memories of his mother to Oddy Muva's sacrifice.

After he was rescued from Jakku, Poe had only told one person — Leia, during his debriefing — and had never mentioned it again, despite her recommendation that he speak with one of the few medical droids or two qualified medical technicians that had studied mental health. Poe doubted that they would be equipped to handle something like this. He certainly hadn't been prepared for it. It hardly mattered since he hadn't taken anyone to bed in the few nights that had passed after the destruction of Starkiller Base, since—

"He's a strong one, isn't he?"

Poe looked up and saw Leia standing over Finn's bed. Encased in glass, Finn was also wrapped in a bacta suit. Countless tubes circulated bacta through a clear plastic.  
Poe bit his lip. 

"Yeah," he said. If Leia noticed the slight crack in his voice, she didn't comment on it. He raised his hand and his fingers grazed the glass gently as they traveled above Finn's shoulder.

"I talk to him about it, sometimes," Poe continued.

"Yes, I have it on good authority that you spent your time in here rather than in your own bed," she said. Her smile was wry and knowing. 

Poe couldn't explain why, but he wanted to be the first person Finn saw when the former stormtrooper woke up. He didn't have much time between debriefings on their D'Qar exit strategy. The First Order fleet would arrive shortly, and they needed to be as far away from the Ileenium System as possible, which involved a full evacuation plan and Poe personally overseeing the project along with a potential bombing run. At the end of these long days, Poe found himself returning to Finn's bedside, recounting even the most menial details of his meetings to Finn, who was a perfect listening partner, silent and unable to leak anything classified. 

Leia placed her hand on Poe's shoulder. He turned away from Finn. Looking up, he was struck by the sadness in her expression. She stared in the direction of Finn's bed, yet past it, to a place that Poe hardly knew. 

"As long as it helps," she said, before walking out of the room.


	2. You'll figure it out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for The Last Jedi.

Finn could hear Poe before he saw him. He didn't think that he had an ounce of force-sensitivity in him — brandishing a lightsaber had felt awkward and off-balanced the more he thought about it — but Finn could hear that Poe had a different walk from the rest. It was purposeful and confident. It told Finn that he could trust in Poe's leadership. 

"I knew her sister, Paige. She spoke of Rose very highly." Poe paused and chuckled. "She said that Rose was always elbows deep in engine grease."

There was something in Poe's voice that made Finn want to reach out towards Poe. Exhaustion, maybe, and a weariness that Finn wanted to stamp out. This sort of tiredness didn't suit the Poe Dameron that Finn knew. 

"They said she'll be okay," Finn said. He looked at Rose's sleeping form dubiously, still uncertain on how much he should trust the medical droids and sole doctor onboard. 

"If they say so, then she will be," Poe said simply. He patted Finn on the back. It still hurt a bit, and Poe immediately withdrew his hand at Finn's wince.

"Sorry about that buddy, I guess you're still healing."

"I'm fine." 

This assertion left Finn's mouth instantly, without thought. Poe recoiled and Finn felt another pull to reach out to Poe that he staunchly ignored.

"She'll be okay soon." Finn didn't know why he kept speaking, but he had an urge to explain to Poe that Rose wouldn't take up their meager resources for too much longer.

"A few days, maybe even sooner, then you can give her bed to someone else, or I could move her? If you guys need more room for another person who is injured."

Finn knew he was babbling at this point, and he still didn't know where this need to define what was happening came from but he couldn't stop the dreadful feeling that if he didn't explain, something even more terrible would happen to Rose.

"What did they do with injured stormtroopers? In the First Order? What happened to them?"

Poe asked the question with a pointed authority. Finn snapped to attention. 

"I—"

Finn couldn't continue speaking. He felt trapped. Poe's reaction told him that there was definitely a correct and incorrect answer to the question, but it seemed loaded with a lot of things that he didn't understand. He had no idea how to make Poe understand what he was talking about, and so he trailed off with a helpless shrug.

Poe reached out and grabbed his shoulder. Finn winced again, but mirrored Poe's actions, gripping Poe's shoulder in turn. Poe let out a dry chuckle, his head bowed, obscuring his face. Confused, Finn continued to grip his shoulder, squeezing tightly to match Poe's grip. He still hadn't found much time to interact with other people outside of Rose, Rey, and Poe. Perhaps this was how people comforted each other in the Resistance. 

When Poe looked up, he stared straight into Finn's eyes. Finn stumbled backwards to escape their anger. Somehow, this only made Poe more angry. 

"What would they have done with you if you'd still been with them when you had that lightsaber wound, buddy?"

Finn took another step backwards only to find himself against the wall next to the small bay area where Rose slept.

He was trapped. 

Immediately, his mind took stock of his surroundings. Rose, in her bed. An angry Poe in front of him. Murmurs down the hallway of the few Resistance members left. No weapons. 

Finn shook his head. No. Poe wouldn't hurt him. Poe was a good person. He turned his attention back to Poe, who had settled for biting his lip. Finn saw some of his anger visibly recede, replaced by another emotion in his eyes that Finn couldn't quite pinpoint. 

"Defective units that have taken too much damage bypass rehabilitation and reprogramming to be recycled." 

The sentence was lifted, word for word, from Finn's instruction manual. 

"I am going to destroy every last ship that the First Order has."

Poe said this with a vehemence that again seemed out of place. Finn didn't want Poe to be angry or sad, ever. He settled on a change of topic to bring Poe back to his bubbly self. And maybe, Finn thought just before he spoke, Poe could help him sort his feelings out. Poe was a good-looking guy, surely he knew something about romance and love. 

"She said she loved me."

Poe breathed in deeply, biting his lip again. 

"Did she now?"

Poe's shaky tone didn't carry the happiness or a sly joke that Finn had hoped for, but at least Poe didn't sound angry anymore. 

Finn looked up from Rose to see Poe's eyes. There were emotions there that he couldn't begin to understand. Finn felt a familiar, uneasy, pressure settle in the pit of his stomach. There was something about Poe too that made him off-balanced and, like most things now, he couldn't pinpoint what it was or verbalize his thoughts. He plodded forward diligently. 

"I still don't know what that means," Finn said. "We weren't exactly allowed to, well—"

He punctuated his unfinished sentence with a helpless shrug. Finn didn't really feel like explaining the details of hormone suppression therapy or one of Captain Phasma's anti-fraternization lectures.

"A stormtrooper's loyalty is to the First Order, not his comrades," Finn recited aloud. He hadn't meant to, but as he thought about his former captain, the mantra slipped out. 

Poe opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something. After a minute, Poe shook his head and squeezed Finn's shoulder again, his hand never had moved from its place at Finn's side. Finn let out a breath that he hadn't known he was holding while watching Poe chomp down on his lip again. 

"You'll figure it out, buddy," Poe finally said. "It just takes time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning, despite this being a collection of short interludes, this is going to be a s l o w burn. I see both Finn and Poe (especially post-TLJ) as two fairly broken people who are both going to need time to sort things out. (Fortunately, in this story, they'll be sorting it out together, hehe) Enjoy. ^ ^


End file.
